Monday, April 18, 2005

We got up late and rushed to get ready to meet Pattie, Erica, Kelli, Janice, Gideon and Lorelei for breakfast. Janice, Gideon and Lorelei were leaving today, and we decided to hang out for breakfast one last time. Pattie, Erica and Kelli leave tomorrow morning, and we leave Wednesday. Bruce had a real early flight this morning, so we said our goodbyes to him yesterday. I can't believe we have to go home in two days, it really feels like we just got here, still. There's still plenty of the city we didn't cover. We never made it to Tokyo Tower or Ueno Park, we only saw bits of Harajuku and Akihabara. I guess, this means we have to come back. ;) Ah well, at least today we head back to Shinjuku. Erica wants to look for some used manga stores that she sorta knows where it is. Again, we don't mind, since it's all new to us. But, first we stop at Sekaido, the stationery store, which is also an art supply store and Kelli and I pick up a lot of screen tones, since they were all $3 a piece, instead of the $8 a piece they are back home. (As an aside; a pack of Marlboro Light 100s = $3, Gas: $3-$5 a liter -- no wonder a majority of the cars here are tiny.) I also pick up a book in Japanese on pen and ink technique and Kelli picks up a book of backgrounds that she plans to scan in when she gets home. She and I plan to scan in the screen tones and start a screen tone library for use between us. After Sekaido, we start looking for these stores Erica wants to visit. The directions she has are not very specific, so it takes us a while to find the referenced starting point. We wander through some back streets and eventually find where they should be, but the stores we're looking for are no longer there. Oh well. We stop at an Indian restaurant for lunch and continue wandering. We find a Yellow Submarine store, which is hobby store (read: gaming) and Donna wants to stop in to get paints for the Kilik resin kit she bought last week. The Yellow Submarine is nearly exactly like gaming stores back in the states, they even had a floor for all the GW stuff. Though they had a lot of magazines dedicated to traditional role-playing (as opposed to online/computer roleplaying or LARPing) All the games and books, though, were all English language imports so that made me wonder about the popularity of traditional RPGS. Anyway Donna and I buy stuff here, and then we all decide it's time for lunch. So we wander into this Indian restaurant and have big lunch. I have the spicy chicken curry that came with a massive piece of nan, which the guy was baking in the tandoori less than 10 feet from our table. I also had a mango lhassi which I haven't had in years. It was tasty, though later we'd discover that the meal didn't really sit too well. We head back to the hotel afterwards to drop off stuff, and rest a bit. Then it's off again for some more shopping. Erica is in a buying frenzy as it's her last night here and she's picking up all the stuff she wanted to before, but didn't really have time for. That gets a little infectious and we buy a lot of stuff. Tomorrow, after breakfast we'll begin our shopping for friends and relatives, like we said we'd do. Today's pictures here.

4 Comments:

Serge, you are just a picture taking fool! It's neat to see all these shots, not just for themselves but also because I am rereading Pattern Recognition (William Gibson) and many of the places you've been to are mentioned in the book. Also, the nice lady who adjusted my spectacles just went to Japan, and came back exclaiming that everything there is so clean, so efficient, and so cute. I bet that pretty much sums it up.

Well, during the day everything is spotless, but as the night goes on, it starts to get dirty like any other city. Donna says that mechazoids come out in the wee hours of the morning to clean everything, because we hardly ever see any trash during the day. And that's especially impressive since there are hardly any public trash cans since the Sarin attack 10 years ago. It's certainly more efficient here compared to Philly or New York, and I guess you could call it cute. I prefer neat, myself. And you know what, all the anime I've been watching is pretty accurate, as far as daily life and certain sights. Of course, now I'll be able to say, I've been there, or I know where that is.

About Me

After enacting a bloody, military coup in a small banana republic at
age 5, "El Presidente" has spent the last two and half decades quashing
dissension under the heel of his patent leather jack boots. He always
makes sure to stop and exploit the helpless, and oppress the masses.
When not brutally torturing his opposition, he can found taking long
walks on the beach with his dog, Snuffles. His turns ons include,
romantic candlelight dinners, lazy days at the beach, and puppies. Turn
offs include Human Rights, the Rule of Law, and really, really mean people.